Sacrifice
by WriterfromWarDrobe
Summary: Salazar washes up on the beach of an island, half drowned and horribly stabbed. Then someone nurses him back to health. As he and his rescuer speak of the pirates who have destroyed their lives, Salazar realizes something about love and sacrifice – that he learned from pirates.


**Sacrifice**

**A Pirates of the Caribbean Fanfiction**

**By WriterfromWarDrobe**

**Salazar washes up on the beach of an island, half drowned and horribly stabbed. Then someone nurses him back to health. As he and his rescuer speak of the pirates who have destroyed their lives, Salazar realizes something about love and sacrifice – that he learned from pirates.**

The water reversed its course; instead of clogging his lungs, it was being released so that air, amid his coughing, was entering his body once more. His groggy eyes only noted the brightness of the Caribbean sun above. He felt the pressure of hands on his chest but could not see anyone standing over him. His torn, burning back was pressed into the wet sand, staunching the blood flow – if there was anything left to drain. How long ago was it when Barbossa's blade had sliced his back? When had he, struggling to swim, finally lost the strength in his arms and begun to drown? He had been unconscious when he had drifted to shore – or when someone had pulled him to safety – only coming to just enough to know he was alive and still in the nightmarish Caribbean that he longed to be away from forever. The bright light before his eyes and the angelic voice that attempted to revive him almost caused him to think he had left behind the land of his suffering. Alas, he knew that was not true. And he dipped back into a world of black.

He awoke some time later, under the large leaves of island foliage. Sweet liquid was on his lips as if someone had forced something down his throat to keep him alive. The pain in his back had been enough to make him beg for death, but, as he grew more aware, he realized the agony had lessened; his back had numbed to coals and embers, not the blaze that had consumed him. And it was patched back together; he could feel the stitches and the tight bands of fabric – from his old jacket – that bound his body.

His shirt had been washed, mended and put back on. He looked like a proper captain laid out in a medical ward. Someone had recognized his position and done the utmost to make him comfortable on the bed of reeds on the island floor.

With his mind beginning to wander and wonder, he recalled the Trident being smashed, reverting him to his human, pre-curse form. He brought a hand to his face to be sure that he was human.

Human.

And he was on land, too. He had not stepped on land since before he had made his resolution to king and country that he would rid the seas of pirates. Then, the curse of the Devil's Triangle had eternally damned him to a wretched life upon the waters, his body smashed apart, unable to die. Now, he was free.

Free.

And at the every second of the breaking of the Trident, when all curses at sea had been undone, when he had been gifted the chance at life once more, the walls of water came down. He was soon to be drowned; his whole crew perished at the bottom of the ocean. But not him. He would escape the clutches of death, the clutches that should have taken him years ago, that he would have welcomed years ago. But no. He had been born again. He would not waste this opportunity. And so, he had climbed the anchor's chain to the pirate ship, not knowing what the pirates would do to him, not knowing what he would do to them. All he knew was that his life was worth more than theirs; therefore, he should be the one to navigate the chain and reach the highest link, above the waters. That pirate wench was just getting in his way…

How was he to know that Barbossa would sacrifice himself to save that girl's life, as if her life was worth more than buried treasure? Worth more than his very life? Barbossa eliminated the threat to that girl's life; he had stabbed the man who had tried to yank her off the anchor-chain. He had saved her life and had likely drowned. And that man who tried to kill her to save himself? He was alive, bandaged up, and being fed.

He tried not to think about those final snatches of memories. They made him sick. Instead, he tried to focus on his surroundings. He was in a camp of some kind that had been inhabited for years – by the look of it – by an ingenious woman. She came over to him, bearing food she had been preparing in crudely carved bowls, blackened by the fire she used for cooking. The concoction looked vulgar, but he was too hungry to question its contents. She assured him that it would ease his suffering. It was warm, and it ran down his throat like honey, and his empty stomach welcomed the food. He knew he was a sick, weak man, but something about the food stirred the hope that he might still recover fully.

"What is this place?" he asked once he had eaten all the contents of the bowl.

"My island." She sat back, her filthy attire no more than rags on her lithe frame. She was strong from laboring on the island. She had lived here a long time, but not her entire life. She spoke with an accent like his. They were speaking their native tongue under the Caribbean sun, far from where they once called home. If she lived on the mainland, she would have been beautiful; she still could be with a scrubbing and a brushing.

"Do you live here alone?"

She said nothing.

"Who are you?"

"Who are _you_?"

"El Capitan Salazar. You heard of me, no?"

She was silent. Her eyes were a glare that pierced his soul. "Yes, I have heard of you. Pirate hunter."

"Do you know who did this to me?" He pointed to his back with a stiff hand gesture. "Pirates."

"They are a murderous lot," she spat. "They've taken everything from me."

He looked her in the eye, saw the pain of being robbed; it was a deep, still festering wound. "Then you will help me fight them, no?"

She chuckled without mirth. "Only if they step foot on this island. There is no way off."

"But…there must be a way off. I…I must teach those pirates a lesson. Look at what they have done to me!"

"I have seen," she said slowly.

He felt his chest heave beneath the bandages. Rage was alight in his eyes.

"_Barbossa!" the other pirate captain had shouted, tossing down the blade. Barbossa had caught the weapon, and before Salazar could register what was happening, the sword had torn his body in two. _

"Jack Sparrow. He's the one. The one who…who…" Salazar struggled for breath. The woman beside him put a hand on his chest.

"You must rest."

"Jack Sparrow. Do you know this pirate?"

She stood up abruptly and turned away from him. She took a few steps, her eyes scanning the camp. "Yes," she said over her shoulder, barely looking at the wounded man. "He cares for only himself." Now her words were coming in jagged breathes, and her fists clenched and unclenched as she became agitated. "All pirates care nothing but for themselves!"

"_Barbossa!" Jack Sparrow tossed down the blade and Barbossa caught it. He let go of the chain and sliced Salazar's back. _

"Selfish! Greedy! MURDERERS!" the woman screamed. She whipped back to face the pirate hunter.

_As the sword tore the skin, Salazar let go of the girl's ankle, and she renewed her hold from which he had tried to wrench her._

The island woman sat back down, looking shaken from her explosive outbursts. Salazar's breathing was returning to normal, and he listened to her little pants for air as she, too, tried to compose herself.

"Pirates have hurt us both," he said soothingly. "But we are still alive to tell the tale. One day, mi àngel, we will wipe the pirates from the seas. They shall pay for what they have done to us."

The woman stood again, looking away from the wounded captain. "How long I have thought of doing such. Revenge is sweet. Rage for revenge festers the longer it is kept stranded on an island with no one to speak to. I have told myself so long that the moment I am off this island, Jack will pay." She glanced back down at him. "I am going mad on this island, desiring a man's death –"

"A pirate's," Salazar corrected.

"I am surely going mad because I hear voices," she went on without pause. "And sometimes they say I am no better than pirates should I kill them." Her eyes were wide as she met the pirate hunter's gaze. "My father was a pirate. He desired to keep his life and not spare mine for he knew I would willingly give mine for his." Her voice grew dark. "Once I tried compassion on a pirate, and see where it brought me? Death is all they deserve."

_Barbossa caught the blade and let go of the chain. He plunged into the crashing waters – a most certain death – taking with him the man who had nearly taken the girl's life to save his own. _

Salazar grimaced at the memory. He returned the woman's fierce gaze, then lifted his eyes past her to the palm trees above, unable to look into her vengeful eyes anymore. He studied the tree leaves and the other island vegetation as if he had never seen a plant before. He stared all around him, and he perceived that the woman was doing the same, seeing everything as if for the first time.

He was human. He was on land. He was free.

Free of curses. Free of pirates. Free of the pirate hunter who had consumed his life.

He had a second chance.

"Tell me, mi àngel, what would you have me do once I am well?"

Her eyes cleared, and her face softened. "I hadn't thought about it." She glanced at some tall plants. "I might need land cleared."

"And you shall have it." He smiled up at her. "Tell me more of your island, mi àngel, for I do not think I shall roam the seas again."


End file.
